Take A Vacation To Boost Your Productivity At Work

Elena Bajic
, ContributorFounder and CEO of Ivy Exec.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

It’s August once again, the unofficial vacation month in many regions of the world. Taking time off from work may seem unrelated to productivity at work, yet many countries that offer employees substantial vacation time each year also have some of the most productive workers in the world. Rather than feeing guilty for taking time off, as so many American workers do, these employees are able to enjoy their time away because when they are at the office, they are more efficient and productive. They work smarter so they don’t have to work longer.

In the U.S. of course, we are notorious for leaving vacation days unused. In fact ours is the only advanced economy in the world that doesn’t guarantee workers paid vacation. Yet we are not the most productive workers in the world. In fact data from the OECD shows that working more hours means less productivity. The most productive countries are Germany and France—each of which has mandated more than 30 days of vacation.

Workers in the U.S., which has no law requiring paid time off, are the third most productive (and only about 25% of Americans take their full allotment of vacation time). We also don’t receive as much paid vacation as our counterparts in other parts of the developed world. According to a report by the Center for Economic & Policy Research, the average private sector worker in the U.S. receives about ten days of paid vacation, less than the legal minimum standard set in the rest of the world’s developed economies (excluding Japan).

On the other hand, Europeans clearly know the value of a vacation, they average 25 to 30 days of vacation per year. France perhaps best epitomizes the vacation spirit, mandating 30 days of paid leave each year, while it surpasses the US in terms of productivity. In addition to France’s 30 days of paid vacation, the U.K. has 28; Denmark, Finland and Sweden 25; and Germany and Belgium, 20 paid vacation days.

Just taking more vacation time won’t improve productivity. As an example, summer vacation in China starts at beginning of July and lasts about two months, while their productivity is still less than a quarter of the productivity of workers in the U.S.

So if vacations on their own don’t improve productivity, it must be what we do and how we manage the time after the vacation that really matters. In fact, a survey of worker productivity and vacation recently published in an the Harvard Business Review, found that corporate leaders in countries with more paid vacation days were more likely to work at a faster pace, have a higher quality focus and feel more impatient. “Employees in countries that take more vacation do have a strong desire to get a lot done as well as a tendency to move faster,” wrote the authors. “In other words, it’s not that taking a break will refresh your brain and let you get more done; it’s that simply spending less time at your desk forces you to waste less time.”

The final take away is that in addition to being fun and relaxing, vacations can have a positive effect on our work life, by forcing us to be more organized and on top of things when we are at work. So go ahead, book that vacation you’ve been dreaming of.